An organization, for example, a public safety organization, may have different types of resources for responding to incidents or other events. Non-limiting examples of the resources may include users of communication devices, mobile communication devices such as mobile or portable radios, servers and other back end computing devices, and vehicles with communications systems. When an incident occurs, each resource having information related to the incident may transmit the information to other resources. Each resource may also execute local rules based on the information it receives from other resources or the information it transmits to other resources. Subsequent to executing the local rules, the resource may determine that certain conditions exist and/or that certain actions must be performed.
For example, consider that a police department has several mobile radios in an area. If a first mobile radio receives information indicating that a user associated with the first mobile radio is outside of a vehicle, that the user is running and that a shot has been fired, the first mobile radio may append a timestamp to the information prior to transmitting the information to other resources. The first mobile radio may also execute predefined local rules using the information it transmitted to other the resources and may determine, responsive to executing the local rules, for example, that a high threat level exists. If the rules associated with the determined high threat level also indicate, for example, that an alert of this threat level must be transmitted to other resources, the first mobile radio may also append a timestamp to the alert and transmit the alert in accordance with the rules. The first mobile radio may also perform other actions that are associated with the determined condition. For example, the first mobile radio may request a high priority network connection when such an action is associated with the high threat level.
Each of the resources receiving the information and/or alert from the first mobile radio may also execute predefined local rules and may also determine based on the received information that the condition (i.e., the high threat level) exists. Similar to the first mobile radio, each of the other resources receiving the alert from the first mobile radio may append a timestamp to its alert and send out the alert to other resources, including the first mobile radio. In other words, each resource executing the same rule may determine that the same condition exists and perform the same actions. This may lead to a circular situation wherein the resources may redundantly share the same known information with different timestamps with each other, thereby wasting the network bandwidth. Furthermore, when each resource receives information that is already known to the resource, the resource may reprocess the information (i.e., the resource may process newly received information even when that information was previously known and/or processed by the resource).
Accordingly, there is a need for an apparatus and method for distributing rule ownership among resources in a system so that a predefined resource may execute a predefined rule.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of embodiments of the present invention.
The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.